Summa que uocat[ur] Catholicon
By: edita a Fratre Iohanne de Ianua, ordinis Frat[rum] Predicato[rum]
Contributors: Gutenberg, Johann, 1397?-1468, printer
Publisher: Printer of the Catholicon (Johann Gutenberg)
Published: 1460
Place of publication: Mainz
Language: lat
Number of pages: 373
Subjects: Grammar; Latin language; Dictionaries; Early works to 1800
Other titles: Summa que uocatur Catholicon ; Summa que vocatur Catholicon; Incunabula (Collection of Distinction) 
Work titles: Catholicon
Notes: Title from first line of text, printer's name from Needham, date of printing from colophon.

Paul Needham, in ́Johann Gutenberg and the Catholicon Presś (PBSA v. 76, no. 4, 1982, p. [395]-456), demonstrates that copies of this work can be divided into three groups: group a) printed on vellum or on paper with a bull's head watermark; group b) printed on Galliziani watermarked paper; and group c) printed on paper with a "tower" or "crown" watermark. The different paper stocks on which the corresponding groups were printed each have known dates of manufacture that are incongruous with the theory that all three were printed ca. 1460. This incongruity has given rise to the theory that group a) was produced in 1460, group b) in 1469 and group c) about 1472. Needham accounts for what appears to be a single setting of type having been reprinted three times over the course of twelve years by postulating that all three groups were printed, not with movable types, but with two-line metal slugs cast from the original setting of type.

Printed on vellum.

Signatures: [1-6℗£́ʻ 7́þ 8-19℗£́ʻ 20́þ́ð℗£ 21-38℗£́ʻ 39́þ].

Access to physical copy/copies by appointment only. Please contact Boston Public Library Rare Books and Manuscripts Department for further information.

Catalogue of books printed in the XVth century now in the British Museum, vol. I, pages 39-40

Goff, F.R. Incunabula in American libraries, entry B-20

Hain, L. Repertorium bibliographicum, entry 2254

Incunabula short title catalogue, entry ib00020000

Cataloged 2015 jmoschella

Boston Public Library (Rare Books Department) copy quarterbound in modern tawed leather and wooden boards; housed in a tan cloth box with a leather label stamped in gilt. This copy is printed on vellum and is comprised of 332 leaves, with the following leaves wanting: [1]-[30], [41]-[50], and [373]. An early ink stamp in an oval border faded to illegibility is present on the first leaf. Two- and three-line initials, section endings, capitals, and paragraphs are rubricated in blue and red. Larger initials are in blue and red with red filigree. Pinholes are present on each leaf, with two holes above the text and two below, each pair being 85 mm apart. Blind impressions around the columns of text, similar to those described by Schwab in "Some Signs of Stereotyping in the Yale Vellum Copy of the Mainz Catholicon," are present in numerous leaves throughout. Many leaves signed in early manuscript. Modern pencil foliation in the upper right corner of each leaf.